


The Cure For Hysteria

by Denzer



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Brief Mentions of Medical Trauma, But Still Romantic?, Dark Reylo, Dominant Kylo Ren, Explicit Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Happy Ending, Knifeplay, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, No Pregnancy, POV Rey (Star Wars), Rey Needs A Hug, brief mentions of past torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:36:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26072011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Denzer/pseuds/Denzer
Summary: Rey, destitute and alone, is drawn to a traveling night circus where Kylo the Impaler, Master of Knives, is the most popular act.
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 77
Kudos: 205
Collections: Reylo Hidden Gems





	The Cure For Hysteria

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RedRoseWhite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedRoseWhite/gifts).



The crowds are drowning her, laughing and shouting in bursts of popcorn-stinking jostling. She's pressed in between petticoats and walking sticks, can't move without touching an elbow or an arse. It was the sword-swallower, she thinks, that's caused this tremulous spiral. The thick movement of that poor girl's open throat reminded her of force-feeds and other, courser, horrors. The tents are too close together, woodchipped walkways packed with revellers that move aside like a tide for carnival folk. But Rey is caught in the current. Her corset is too tight, the largest animal on the planet stripped bare just to wrap her ribs in its skeleton. She can't breathe and her stolen paper fan is tattered.

The crowd moves her past a quiet tent. All the others are spewing noise, chanting or screaming, swells of sound that echo in her ears. But not this tent. The red and white material flutters and it's quiet as a grave inside. Rey pushes hard, feels the thump of an outraged elderly man on her back as she ducks to squeeze by, and throws herself into the dark.

She had planned to catch her breath inside the door but, instead, she holds it, trapped by the circle of light at the centre of the ring. His arm is raised so the light hits a bulge of scarred muscle as he reaches back behind his head. The glint in his huge hand rolls her gut. _Danger_ , singing in one voice, in a way that the panic never does. Blissful, like focus. She only breathes when he lets it fly.

The girl is splayed out, arms and legs shockingly bare and oiled to glisten. She's spinning slowly, revolving in concentric circles of red and white that make Rey dizzy if she watches for too long. The _thunk_ of the hunting knife is the loudest sound in the room. No-one here is breathing, just like her.

Over and over, he strikes the board, on either side of the girl's head, next to her wrists, and beside her heart, and finally, high up between her legs. The last draws a lewd gasp from the crowd and he turns away from them, an uneasy hunch to his hatchmarked throwing-shoulder. There are faint scars on his back too, just visible in the glow of the spotlight. Kylo The Impaler, Master of Knives; the sign painted red and black holds only a moment's interest. Rey has swayed forward, drawn by his concentration, the darkness of his brow, the way he lifts his chin the instant before his powerful arm shoots out. Any one of his weapons could maim or kill the thin slip of circling woman but she never flinches at the crack of the wooden wheel when the knives pierce it. Rey is transfixed, standing at the edge of the ring with her hand covering the swell of her chest. She's quietly heaving and it doesn't seem strange to do so, in this place. She doesn't have to hide it.

He strides to the turn-table and stops it, untying the woman with practiced flourish. He crouches, wide-kneed, to free her legs. A pink-voiled lady, seated close to the ring, gasps and crosses her ankles in an odd twist that Rey recognises with a tremor of fear. But she can't help it either, when he hooks his hands around the woman's waist and lifts her down, effortless, Rey has to cross one foot in front of the other too, squeezing her thighs together. His deep voice rings out over the clapping and whistling of the audience.

"This is, sadly, Rose's last week of performing with Palpatine's Night Circus. We must wish her well."

He holds up her arm and his own to take a bow. The girl bends at the waist and the hand she is holding goes with it but the rest of his body is frozen. He stares at Rey as if he knows instinctively, she has not paid for a ticket. She turns to flee, the muddy end of her skirts catching sawdust like a plume. She hears him call "Wait!" as she bursts through the tent opening into the tail-end of the crowd. She can run again, twist through the layers of lace and tailcoats, and the pounding of her heart no longer scares her.

* * * * *

She slips through the fence again the next night. He see's her after his first throw, Rey can tell by the hesitation that wouldn't be visible to anyone who wasn't watching so closely. She's standing at the back, avoiding the ticket-boys. She doesn't move from his tent until the last show is over.

"You! Girl!" he calls above the screech of the audience but she slips beyond the tent overlap and runs until the circus is a blur of dull lights in the sway of the wheat fields.

He catches her on the third night. By that stage, Rey has learned that he doesn't like the audience. Between shows, he moves out of the light while Rose dazzles pirouettes around the ring in her sparkling, puffed shorts and bralette. Kylo stretches his bare arms in the darkness and he watches Rey, unsmiling. He grimaces when it's time to begin again, every show, running his thumbs under the black braces that flank his wide frame as he steps into the ring, a spectacle he doesn't want but gains nonetheless.

He doesn't take his last bow, doesn't wait for applause. He jumps the ring barricade instead and grasps her wrist loosely as she slinks from the tent. He keeps walking, silent and composed, as if they already knew each other well enough for this kind of contact. For once, Rey doesn't struggle.

The fence slats are too wide-set on the south side. Kylo walks them straight there.

"Is this how you get in?" he asks, but his voice is soft and his grip so loose she could wrench free and disappear is she wanted to.

"It's darker here, and there are fewer people. No-one has noticed."

"I noticed."

There's that same thrill she gets when he raises his chin, right before the weapon leaves his hand, but his palm is empty now and he releases her wrist to trail his fingers along her arm, feather-light. Rey steps closer. The movement is pulled from her belly and she simply follows it, tipping her head back so she won't lose the glint of his stare.

His face is scarred too, a slice at his temple, and a long slinking line from his jaw to his eyebrow, like a warning. He leans down, a huff of breath at the corner of her mouth, and her heart rocks against her breastbone.

"Most people watch the girl. They wait for the blood, for me to fail. But not you. You watch me."

Rey closes her eyes, lets his voice seep down, rolls her hips with it. She knows she's saying ' _yes'_ but she doesn't hear it.

"Do you want me to show you?"

* * * * *

The tent is empty, turn-table unmoving in the dust-filled spotlight. He leaves her in the ring, comes back from the darkness with his arms full of metal. All types of knives, large and thin, short and curved, hunting knives and daggers.

"Don't try to hit anything, just throw them all until you feel which one you need."

They are cold in her hands, exposed and menacing. She asks him questions because his voice steadies her and she wants that now.

"How did you come to this?"

"I was shown it, I learned on the turn-table, like most do. But he used it for punishment too, so I wouldn't fear the blade."

He is circling her as he speaks, watching as she runs her fingers over the hilts. She feels calmer but his words also pull at her. She thinks of scalpels and she is afraid.

"That's how you got your scars?"

"Yes."

It's a simple answer but she can still hear it, regret or pain, or maybe longing. It reminds her of her own laboured breath as she scaled that high stone wall in nothing but a paper-thin white gown, how filled her heart had been with quivering. _Hope_.

By the time she has selected her first knife, he has come to stand behind her. He shows her what to do, hand spanning the smallest part of her waist, urging her to keep strength there are he lifts her arm back.

His fingers pat her stomach, "This doesn't move," and then a breath just below her ear, "Let it fly."

It soars, dull gleam and deadly spin, and hits the wood, handle first. He doesn't laugh.

"Good," and then "Again."

Her arm is burning by the time she's thrown them all, over and over, and she knows which one she wants to steal. The long, curved-handled blade. It fits heavy in her palm but it's the only one that sticks in the wood, triumphant as a jewel.

"Perfect," he tells her from the edge of the ring. He's leaning against the barricade, arms crossed. One hand reaches to run along his eyebrow before he says the quiet words that knock her cold.

"My turn."

She changes into one of Rose's outfits, stored at the back of the tent in a huge travelling chest. Her pilfered skirts would catch in the splintered wood of the turn-table, and Rey can tell just by looking at him that Kylo wants to see her in a costume. Dark red, silky, with a gap at her belly so her fraying corset is exposed. It's too tight again, as he lifts her onto the triangle of metal that juts from the wood. He ties her hands to the board, no flourish this time. No-one watching.

"Don't," she tells him when he dips to secure her ankles, "I want to see."

He doesn't insist, though Rey is sure he wants to spin her and let fly, to show what years of practice have brought to his aim. He walks to the edge of the light and she can't help but tug a little at the restraints when he ducks down, taking his time to select the weapons he wants, testing their weight in his palm. Several agonising minutes later, he turns back to her, four knives held in his left hand, one in his right. At some point during her training, he has let those black braces fall around his hips so there's nothing but a wall of pale skin stretched taut over muscle as he draws his arm back.

It's there again, that squeeze of her ribs that forces her breath in torrents. Hysteria, they had called it, before she ran. An affliction only curable with cocaine and the pelvic massage Dr. Plutt was so fond of. The dagger jolts her whole body, wood bowing with the force, splintering like surrender. He doesn't stop, firing until the boards vibrate. He still raises his chin, but there's no slow dragging of his movements, no flashy swagger before the next knife is thrown. He seems not to look at where he's aiming, eyes on hers the entire time. The last hits by her ear, whistling through her loosening hair. Her breath is steady.

He crosses the ring, pulls the blades loose. But not her.

"Better?" he asks and, if Rey had her hands free, she would raise them to her face. He's seen. He has seen her chest pull hard and her breath pulse and he knows what she is now.

"No," she answers because now it's worse and the binders on her corset press hard with her flaring breath.

He stares for a moment and then places the knives on the floor at his feet but comes back up with one still in his hand.

"You're only fearless when you're in danger," he tells her with his chin tilted to the side and his upturned eyes sanguine and assured.

"I can't catch my breath."

"I can help you."

The sharp tip of the blade is pressed to the pad of his thumb, twirling there. When he looks at her now there is a fierceness that shudders through her, leaving dead calm in its place. She nods, and he catches the hem of her stolen costume. The knife slips icy against her thigh and it's so sharp the material barely tugs as he cuts her loose. He carves, slow and tickling, up to her arm. When he flicks it, close to her neck, a swathe of red silk pools around her waist, fluttering to the floor as she lifts herself away from the wood. Her corset is next. He avoids the thin strip of her hospital-issued knickers, they tie with a small clasp, all the better to ease her out of them for her therapy. The whalebone edging of the bodice is so tight against her that he frowns and there's a responding shiver in her thighs that brings his hand there, briefly soothing. The sigh slips from her, heated and shaking.

He slides higher, eyes pool-dark and glistening, gliding over her skin till it plucks up beneath his touch. Gently, he lifts the hard edge of boning. Another, sharper, sigh as he skates fingertips along her heated belly and the raw cold of the knife follows. The flat edge trails her stomach and Rey is frozen in place, holding so still she feels like the statues that looked down on her with sympathy while those responsible for her care tore her apart. The first rip is a wrench, tugging hard across her ribs and his breath comes harsh through his nose.

She foregoes his gaze to study his slacks. The material has tented out toward her shins and she lifts a foot to his hip, running the line of thick thigh muscle. The knife jerks in his grip and he pats her waist again, like he had before, but with more urgency. _Stop_.

Kylo pulls the tough material away from her ribs and cuts through the thickness until it comes loose with a jarring lurch. He tugs it away from her, tosses it across the ring with a sidelong look that holds no grief at its loss. When he looks back to her, his lips seem fuller, like he'd bitten them as he worked. Rey is bare, splayed out before him but his eyes don't stray from her face. He's holding her hips, as he had Rose, but Rey's arms are tied and his right hand still holds the knife, tilted away from her skin.

"Did that feel good?"

Her whispered yes comes out elongated, hissing like pain, and he smirks at it. There it is, the darkness, front and centre and calming in its reveal. He brings his mouth to her belly, kissing just below her navel.

"This?"

"Yes."

He moves his right hand over the swell of her hip. A quick, cold flicker and her knickers loosen, fabric sticking to her wet centre, then falling away.

"Do you want more?" he asks this muffled, lips pressed to her skin and pulled taut in a grimace.

Rey always wants more, that's what's been listed on her forms. Insatiable. Wanton. But she's never felt this. Her foot slides up the pockmarked wood, knee nudging hard into his shoulder. She feels the rumble of his groan on her belly and then her raised leg is pushed out hard, the flat of the knife pressing on the tender skin of her thigh. The tent is filled with Rey's panting breath but Kylo is holding still. He waits until she looks back down to him, his chin close to her rough shaved mound, the hair only beginning to grow back, and for a moment she feels shame. It's brief because he pounces, pressing soft lips there, opening his mouth so she can feel how impossibly hot his breath is.

She's cried out before, during exams, during treatment, and those sounds were always hollow and bitter but this moan she gives him, the one that ripples his shoulders, this is high-pitched and filled with an ache that echoes there, where his lips are pressed. She knows he can feel her pull tight and high.

"Kylo, please," her voice sounds like she remembers, before the doctors.

He drops his shoulder and lifts her leg over it, forcing her higher on the turn-table so her head tips over the back of it and her arms pull at her restrained wrists. She doesn't feel any of it, just his mouth and his tongue, the long stripe and firm roll of it. He has done this before, knows where to lick and suck, how to build it, layer it until she's calling out, heedless of the quiet. It's almost too much until his fingers come up to form a V, hold her open wider, and then there's no more tent. There are stars and a falling sensation and heat shimmering so her legs clench around his dark head. He slows, long stripes again, huge puffs of hot breath on sensitive skin.

"Who are you?" he asks as he ducks beneath her thigh, lowering her until she sitting on his forearm, knees tucked against his side.

"I'm Rey." She gives him her real name, though she hadn't intended to.

Kylo pulls the restraints loose and tosses his hair back as she wraps her arms around his shoulders.

"Did you come here for me?"

She thinks of the posters, the dark outline, and the oversized knives. He looks nothing like the image they'd made. In them, he'd looked monstrous, not this pleading sadness he covers with controlled languor.

"For the knives," she explains, but that's only partly true and Rey doesn't feel the need to lie, "I'll stay for you."

He walks with her, held close so she can feel the movement of his steps against her side. Her legs still tremble.

"This is not a gentle life."

He sits on the barricade to swing his long legs over and Rey lays her head in the crook of his shoulder.

"I've never had that."

"You should."

In the darkness, she can't tell if he's mocking her but it doesn't sound like it. It sounds like memory. He lays her flat out on the tarp behind the travelling chest, pulls something soft under her head to cushion it.

"Open your legs." There's the pop of a button as he whispers and she drops her knees to either side, stretches her sore arms above her head. He leans down to massage them and she can just make out the breadth of his wide shoulders in the darkness.

"Better?" he asks when he's run his hands up and down for so long she feels boneless. She's throbbing again, the strength in his hands forcing her to imagine what is hovering between her belly and his.

"I want more." It doesn't feel like a bad thing to ask anymore because he responds to it with a helpless groan that he cuts off almost immediately. He slides his hands from her elbows to her breasts, slows again, and Rey thinks he likes the catlike squirm of her beneath him.

"The knife," she tells him, palm up and fingers grasping.

Kylo freezes and she gets the distinct impression he can see her, though all she can make out is the fall of his hair over his dark face. He reaches out and pulls the tent overlay open. Light from somewhere far away shadows his face. His eyes shine. He lifts to his knees and tilts far back, reaching behind him and coming to her with a dirk so small that it's her turn to smirk.

When she's holding it, he comes up tall on his knees, the dull light falling across his chest and stomach. Rey looks at him for longer than she means to and he stays put, lets her stare. He's rigid and even in the darkness his cock is an angry red. She squeezes the handle of the knife until her knuckles ache.

"Use the flat edge," he tells her as he lowers himself, "don't cut me."

Rey can't speak. He's asking as if he expects her not to listen, as if the pain is inevitable and it snaps at her. She reaches forward and draws him close, chin tucked into the crook of her neck. Her fingers rub at his scalp, soothing and light.

"I won't hurt you. That's not what I want you to feel."

He's already pressed against her and his hips rock at her words, sliding him along her so her body tightens in response. When she lets him go, he leans on one elbow and takes her wrist, placing the knife level on the side of his throat. There's a spot there, that if cut, will spurt blood like a pulsing fountain. Rey had seen it done with a pen and the memory makes her wince.

"I trust you," Kylo tells her and then dips to push inside her, all at once, like a test, or a cure. It's searing, burning stretch and he's sliding back before she can adjust. She has to focus hard, keep the side of her hand pressed into his collarbone for control as he moves. With her other hand, she grips the back of his neck, steadying herself. Four, five hard thrusts and her body has inched across the floor, pushing her breath out with every buck. He digs his hand under her hip, pulls her back to him, rough, paying no mind to the weapon. The danger seems to rivet him, just as it had her.

She raises her knees, letting him go deeper and he stutters a filthy curse in response, holds her hip in place, and drives harder. Rey can't hold the knife anymore when his fingers slide between them, it shakes in her grip and she tosses it, curling up to tuck her head beneath his chin and muffle her cries into his chest. The pad of his thumb is rough but he's surprisingly gentle as he circles her, considering the force he is using to fuck her into the dusty tarp. She comes with a cry she knows must be heard by anyone close by and she's a rag-doll after that, letting him lift her up so he can sit back on his heels. She clings to his shoulders as he ruts into her. He presses his whole forearm hard across Rey's lower back, forcing her down until she's sobbing with the depth of him, begging him, unsure of how much more she can take.

"Please, please, _please_ …"

She doesn't know exactly what she needs. 

Abrupt, he leans to the left and when he comes back to her, she feels the sharp edge of the dirk, pressing icy into the flesh of her throat from collarbone to ear. It's too intense, the pump of his hard body against her, the push of him deep inside her, the look on his face like he's seeing something more than her face. It bursts inside her, burns through her whole body until she can barely hold onto him. Rey doesn't feel the nick, just the tiniest seep of warmth and she comes with a howl when he drops the knife and bends to bring his mouth to her neck.

She clenches hard and he throws his head back, streaking inside her with warm spurts and staggered rhythm. He's just as loud, wild and heedless, as she had been. Chest heaving, he gentles and releases his hold, skating a soothing hand up and down the ridges of her spine. When he looks down at her all the darkness as receded, like low tide, and she wonders what moon-pull will bring it forth again.

"You'll stay for me?" he asks and she's nodding before he's finished his question, smoothing her palms along his wide shoulders. He kisses her, careful and slow, and the tent overlay falls back into place with some unfelt breeze. The pitch-black is soft and sweet.

Rey has never felt so calm.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay look - this is not my kink. I wanted to challenge myself to write a kink I was averse to but I was too scared to look up knife-play so I have no idea if I got any of it right - sincere apologies if you were expecting more. I also know nothing about 1890... or, for that matter, circuses. Gotta go with it, you know? :-)
> 
> But I do know that Cocaine and Pelvic Massage (induced orgasm) was used in the past to solve the problems of women's hysteria, which seems to be, like, any behavior at all. Gross. 
> 
> This is for Red, the most supportive and talented writer I have the privilege of knowing!
> 
> Also, many thanks to [Jen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jentheobscure) for the conversation that inspired this challenge!
> 
> Thanks so much for reading and please come say hi on Twitter [@DenzerWriter](https://twitter.com/DenzerWriter)


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